The human mould

Has it ever been so difficult being inside your own head that you spend every second trying to get out of it?

I latched on to learning Japanese as an outward focus and it enabled me to avoid thinking and in doing so get out of my own head.

As I recovered following the psychotic episode I began to find my way back inside and those fifteen or so years of development I had missed out on suddenly happened in a flash.

Recently I noticed that the things that at one point were fresh and exciting had now been filed away to the back of my mind and I was beginning to lose touch with that way of looking at our world.

Fitting into the human mould is what happens to everyone. You lose sight of what is important because you are so focused on getting on with the world that your brain can cope with that the eyes you used as a child growing into an adult get shorter and shorter sighted until you can no longer see beyond the end of your own nose.

Dark Days - complete flip of personality

I'd been going out with this lady and it was all going well until one day I just flipped and lost all feeling for her. I didn't question why the sudden change had occurred - after all it was how I felt so why would I?

She came over and we broke up, but only a couple of hours later I suddenly flipped back and all of a sudden loved her once again. Deeply regretting my mistake I immediately called her and three years later we are married and living together.

Every so often this same flipping of feeling towards her will occur; we call them 'dark days'. I know that they'll pass so now I just ride them out, but they're still deeply unpleasant and distressing.

Whether it's another part of the schizophrenia I don't know. There haven't been many dark days recently which is of course really nice for both of us but then there hasn't been as much stress in my life - due to taking special care not to overdo it or push myself too far.